Someone should account for the Department of Home Affairs’ disintegration to an almost completely dysfunctional level, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Sandy Kalyan said on Wednesday.
She was commenting on the report of the interim task team established to oversee the department following highly critical findings made in the auditor general’s report last year.
The National Assembly’s home affairs committee was briefed by the task team on its preliminary findings on Wednesday.
These include that there is no sense of urgency, deadlines are not met, there is inadequate management capability to drive and sustain change, and the current organisational structure does not enable the department to meet its core responsibilities.
The department also does not have a full head count of everyone it employs, steps in the personnel recruitment and selection process are being neglected, and the corporate services branch does not ensure regulatory requirements are met, such as performance reviews and annual assessments.
Generally, there is a lack of a coordinated framework for standard operating procedures from the department’s head office, and no cogent management plan exists to deal with processing service-delivery backlogs.
Kalyan welcomed the goals and targets the task team has set to try to turn the situation around, calling it a positive step. But there are two unanswered questions arising from the preliminary report.
”If it is found, as the preliminary report indicates, that there were serious transgressions, what action will be taken against the people implicated?
”And, how is it that the department was allowed to disintegrate to a level whereby it is almost completely dysfunctional? Someone needs to be held to account for this decline, but who?”
The preliminary findings are damning. But the intervention will only be of real value if it sends a clear message that failure is met with consequences and that people in key positions are held to account for their performance.
All citizens have to interact with the department at some stage, and it is imperative that it perform effectively and efficiently, and officials act responsibly, if it is to successfully deliver basic services to ordinary South Africans, Kalyan said. — Sapa